Lab coats 'improve concentration'

Lab coats are the most important piece of lab equipment, according to new research, which has found that putting on the white coat helps you concentrate on your work and make fewer errors.

Researchers from Northwestern University have found that people associate clothing with care and attentiveness, which therefore results in 'heightened attention' to tasks when attired accordingly. They examined 58 undergraduates over a series of tests, half of whom wore a disposable white lab coat, with the control group wearing normal clothing.

The test subjects were asked to complete four visual-search tests that featured two nearly identical pictures placed side by side. The images had four minor differences, and the students were timed based on how quickly they managed to find the discrepancies.

The results showed that those wearing a doctors coat were able to find more differences, which was attributed to 'heightened attention' owing to the fact that they all took the same time to complete the test.

Adam Galinsky, one of the researchers, said: "The main conclusion that we can draw from the studies is that the influence of wearing a piece of clothing depends on both its symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing the clothes.

"There seems to be something special about the physical experience of wearing a piece of clothing."

Posted by Fiona Griffiths